


creatures like us (but more like me)

by NobleZeda



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Betrayal, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, M/M, Pining, Possession, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-05-21 12:57:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6052431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NobleZeda/pseuds/NobleZeda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As soon as he got out of the car, Adam could feel it. He asked Blue if she could.</p><p>She stared at the trees, and then at him. The sky was clouded, but the sun still dominated a good portion of it. Blue's eyes were beaming from the white light of it, and she bridged her hand at her forehead to adjust. "Feel what?"</p><p>"There's something in Cabeswater."</p><p>He set off toward the forest.</p><p>"Way to be cryptic," Blue huffed, speeding up to keep pace with him. "We can't all be magically connected to a mystical forest. Where are we going?"</p><p>Adam pursed his lips. The answer only formed in his mind because she had asked him. He said, "To the heart of Cabeswater."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So my original plan was to post this all in one big chapter, but as this is taking quite longer than I expected, I wanted to sort of split it up a bit, so that way people can have a breather between and so I can ultimately get more work done on it rather than constantly going back and editing what I've already started. Excelsior! Onward and upward!

Adam slept like he was dead.

When he dreamed, he dreamed like he'd never been awake. He had a dusty alarm clock perched on the upended plastic bin substituting for a nightstand. This clock was the most valuable thing he owned. Not monetary-wise - though he had spent more than he would on anything else to ensure quality. It was valuable to him _because_ it worked well. Adam Parrish left his life in that alarm clock's hands, pun intended, every time he closed his eyes.

There were two power outlets in his shitty apartment above the church. The first was just beside his bed. It powered the alarm clock and the room's sole lamp. The other was just beneath the window. One socket powered a battered, fritz-prone mini fridge, and the other didn't work.

Red analog numbers switched to 5:02, and Adam's alarm pierced the air. He didn't jerk awake. Rather, the abysmal - and in Adam's case perpetual - feeling of being empty dragged him into the real world. He rubbed his eyes.

Adam was a young man who scrounged for simple luxuries. Two extra minutes of natural sleep were worth more than five minutes pretending the alarm hadn't gone off. Adam was up and walking around the darkened room immediately.

He flicked on the lamp. By habit, his face turned away from the exposed light bulb. A small click left him bathed in orange and blinking away exhaustion.

The bathroom door always creaked like Adam was stepping on a kitten. He hated it, but with a roof over his head and three jobs to keep it there, he was in no position to complain. One day he would borrow some grease from the shop to fix it - but it would have to be a day where he got more than four and a half hours of sleep at a time. So no day in the foreseeable future.

Mornings in St. Agnes were quiet, lonesome things. Adam never spoke and cars were sparse at this time of day. The only sounds were those he could elicit from the complaining floorboards and protesting appliances. Their interspersed conversation made Adam retreat into himself, made him even quieter. Though Adam Parrish directed the sounds, he was not a part of them. He was the conductor, not the performer. 

Every breath sounded loud in the silence of closed walls. It was impossible not to take note of everything he did, to become hyper-aware of the life he lived. One person walking around a tiny room, living off scraps but living nonetheless, trying to play at someone whose potential was not muddled with the stain of rural Henrietta.

It was also peaceful. Some days, Adam thought he could feel himself chipping away at those stains. Some days, the whisper of  _Not forever_ seemed louder than others. These days were brighter, freer, and usually ruined come afternoon. Today was not one of those days. Today, Adam Parrish was just... quiet. He was going through the motions.  _Not forever_ was drowned out by the whispering of trees, though Adam knew better than to imagine he was a part of this conversation either.

And then it was quiet.

Adam didn't notice, because he had just turned on the sink. The water took a moment to get going when Adam turned the handle, especially since he hadn't just gotten out of the shower. He peeled back the foil coating the basin to wash his face and brush his teeth, then replaced it to scry for a few minutes.

Cabeswater seemed clearer than it had been in months. Not a stone or twig out of place. Adam was pleasantly surprised. It would give him an unanticipated two hours in between shifts to stop by the laundromat.

With that subtle mood booster, Adam Parrish walked out of the bathroom and started to get ready for work.

Four hours later, nestled in her warm bed, natural light woke Blue. Her muscles were relaxed, her body well-rested. She wasn't thinking of Adam or work or Cabeswater. She was thinking about her quiz in English on Monday, and what she wanted to have for breakfast.

At the same time, Gansey was showering in Monmouth Manufacturing. Ronan was yelling through the door to _hurry up_ because he was _hungry_ , damn it, and he wanted to get into the fridge. Noah was sprinkling glitter over miniature Henrietta like snow.

Glendower was the only was still sleeping.

 

* * *

 

Ronan wouldn't pretend he had slept well. There were horrible, hideous brown bags underneath his eyes. He yawned sequentially; his yawns had brown bags under _their_ eyes. He scrubbed at his face and growled at inanimate objects. He _did_ pretend he hadn't dreamed.

Because he had dreamed of Adam.

More specifically, of Adam's violent, brutal murder - in Cabeswater of all places. The place he was supposed to be protected at all costs. Ronan hissed in distaste as he banged his shin into the side of Gansey's bed.

The worst part was, Ronan's dream had barely given him more than enough to scare the shit out of him. He had no context. No explanation. Nothing except for Adam, staring intently at what could only be a person - someone who was out of Ronan's sight. The look in Adam's face had been dark and angry. He had _hated_ whoever it was. Ronan could only hope from the way he'd been positioned to view the scene that it hadn't been him.

Adam had said something - something that couldn't be heard over the frenzied whispering of the trees. They were whispering to Ronan in the dream, he knew, but he felt it would been much more helpful if he could hear _Adam's_ words. Especially since their whispers hadn't even been Latin. They'd been that semi-familiar language that Ronan still couldn't decipher.

And then the worst.

A blinding flash. Like lightning, but the width of a tree and pure white, frothing, blinding, sending voltage throughout the rest of the air, making it dry and crisp. It happened so fast. One second nothing; halfway into the next second, Adam was hit, flying backward by his chest, landing thirty feet away. Crumpled.

Ronan had screamed. His body had been tearing itself up from the inside, as though his organs had claws digging into each other and every movement shredded. He'd sprinted, unable to get there any faster than he could, his insides a burning slop of terror and disbelief. By the time he was at Adam's side, Adam was long dead. Ronan's insides stopped destroying each other. They disappeared altogether.

There was smoke rising from Adam's clothes. Unnatural, coiling black smoke. The skin exposed by his shirt collar was a mottled black melding into ashen, ghostly white that made Ronan sick. Adam was on his side, his eyes wide open, the pupils blown wide in death. His skin looked like clay. His expression didn't even have the fucking decency to look surprised. It was a neat, practiced uncaring. That was the worst thing. It made Ronan feel invisible, like Adam was just pretending not to see Ronan sobbing at his side as his world crumbled, shook, and splintered off into unrecognizable, irreparable pieces.

Then his brain had pitched him back into the real world, because his body had been having a panic attack without him.

So Ronan didn't pretend that he had slept well. He pretended that he had not seen what he'd seen because he was pretty sure that his brain would cave in on itself, but he didn't ignore it. He just... put it off a bit.

Telling Gansey or Blue would lead to a full-scale investigation, and Ronan wasn't ready to carry that anxiety with him. He could be worried, sure, because it wasn't a normal stress-dream, he knew. He didn't have normal dreams of any kind. But they also never told the future, anyway. They just gave him free stuff.

It had been nothing. Just a nightmare. He was used to nightmares. He had them all the time. His familiarity with night horrors proved it--

But the night horrors hadn't been there.

The realization brought Ronan out of his body and back to Cabeswater, to the second before Adam had been struck. There had been no sounds but the frenzied whispering. No _tck-tck-tck-tck_.

They always came.

Even now, after he'd mastered them, they always came. They circled him, snapping and swiping, feeding off his self-hatred, though Ronan was protected by their albino counterpart. The one that guided him back to the safety of the real world on wings like feather pillows.

There had been no night horrors.

Ronan barged into the kitchen/laundry room/bathroom. Gansey, half-dressed, yelped.

"Damn it, Lynch, I was going to be ready in _one minute_!"

"Gansey."

 

* * *

 

"Your modesty can wait, asshat, we have to talk to Blue."

Gansey hurried into the room after Ronan, hastily pulling a shirt over dripping hair and shoving his glasses on. "Blue? Why Blue? I mean, of course we should _tell_ her, but why  _talk_ to her?"

Ronan huffed, "Fine, not Blue. Her weird relatives. Roommates. Whatever." He didn't break pace toward the door.

"Lynch! Hold on! I need my shoes!"

"No time," Ronan said, taking his keys in hand and wrenching open the front door.

Gansey made an indistinct noise of protest. Only one of his shoes was in immediate sight; he grabbed it and carried it to the BMW, which Ronan had already started.

 

* * *

 

Adam loved the laundromat - which he acknowledged was a strange sentiment, especially for a kid his age. To him, it didn't seem as strange, but he was the one working three jobs to pay rent and put himself through private school. He'd stopped being surprised by the weird, adulty things that he enjoyed, and he couldn't deny that a part of him looked forward to the promised two hours of relative peace, during which he could knock out two birds with one stone - laundry and homework.

But he hadn't been anticipating what had happened.

It was sort of an accident.

A routine oil change which had turned into an unanticipated moment of scrying. He couldn't exactly help it. It was like Cabeswater had grabbed him by the shirt collar and screamed "SOS!" before immediately lapsing back into oblivion.

So Adam was a little disappointed to move his laundromat date back to its previous scheduling.

After his shift, he called Blue, then drove to 300 Fox Way directly from work. He was greasy and gross, with an oil smudge on his neck and sweat staining his shirt. In most ways, he fit in with his car. The steering wheel made an odd ticking sound if he turned it too far to the right. The hondayota engine occasionally sounded like someone had thrown gravel into it. The air conditioning only ever worked in the winter. It was a piece of shit through and through, but it was his prized piece of shit.

Blue was waiting on the doorstep when Adam pulled up. She ran to the passenger side, but Adam didn't notice until he had already shut off the engine.

"Oh. Hey," he said as she clambered in. "What were you doing out here?"

Blue made a face. "Mom and Mr. Gray monopolized the kitchen for some weird couple baking experiment. I think she's planning on recruiting him into the tea business." She shuddered and buckled her seat belt. Adam grimaced in sympathy and turned the key.

To no effect.

His face shifted to a curious concern. He twisted again. The engine sputtered, grinding out gravel, and died.

Adam cursed.

He tried seven separate times, Blue's eyebrows and the volume of Adam's curses raising higher with each attempt. Eventually, though it pained him, Adam admitted, "It won't start."

Blue's eyebrows dropped. She unbuckled and opened the door. "Good thing you're a mechanic, then," she said, and shut the door behind her. Adam sighed and followed.

For the most part, this was what the problem looked like: the hondayota was the equivalent of a ninety-year old man walking down the road. By shutting off the engine, Adam had just punched this old man in the face. Now, if he hadn't done that, the old man could have continued walking on just fine. But since he had, he was now stranded on the side of the road with a dead body.

After several minutes of fruitless attempts, Blue suggested, "I could ask my mom to borrow the car."

Adam considered this, shoulders hunched in shame as he leaned over the car's innards. It wasn't much longer until his shift at the factory began, and he didn't have the equipment on hand to fix the hondoyota. There didn't seem to be much of a choice.

"I guess you're going to have to," he said, defeated. Then he waited while Blue headed back inside. He waited and waited and tried his hand at willing the hondoyota to work. He even asked Cabeswater. And then he cursed again and waited some more.

When Blue returned, it was with a set of keys. She tossed them to Adam. Adam caught them, but his face was puzzled.

"It's your car," he said. "Don't _you_ want to drive?"

Apparently, Adam had said something funny. Blue smiled like she was savoring that joke. "If I drive, you'll never get to work."

"Fair enough."

They left the hondoyota parked next to the house. Adam prayed it just needed to sit for a bit, and would be working by the time they got back - but if not, he was sure Blue wouldn't mind dropping him off. He just severely hoped it didn't come to that.

Conversation was awkward. Blue was purposely talking, but that only made the thing she was pointedly _not_ talking about more manifest. The elephant in the car was making it difficult for Adam to think.

The Sargent car was newer by far than the hondayota, and much nicer. The engine wasn't perfect, but it still had plenty of time left in it. All of the dash lights were in perfect working condition, which was something he wasn't used to - even the button telling Adam not to open the radiator when the coolant was hot.

Adam was all too happy to arrive at Cabeswater. It meant they could stop pretending with whatever they were pretending - though he had to admit that she had worn him down. Blue was charming. Increasingly more often, Adam could feel that weight of resentment over their break up lifting. Which was good. He didn't like resenting Blue. She deserved so much more than that. He was working on it; practice and theory were always two very different monsters around him.

As soon as he got out of the car, Adam could feel it. He asked Blue if she could.

She stared at the trees, and then at him. The sky was clouded, but the sun still dominated a good portion of it. Blue's eyes were beaming from the white light of it, and she bridged her hand at her forehead to adjust. "Feel what?"

"There's something in Cabeswater."

He set off toward the forest.

"Way to be cryptic," Blue huffed, speeding up to keep pace with him. "We can't all be magically connected to a mystical forest. Where are we going?"

Adam pursed his lips. The answer only formed in his mind because she had asked him. He said, "To the heart of Cabeswater."

"How long is that going to take? What about the factory?" Blue reminded him.

Adam shrugged. "We'll be quick." He was so assured in his statement that Blue could hardly argue.

Cabeswater seemed conflicted. On the one hand, it parted readily for them, eager to reveal its secrets for those willing to look. On the other hand, ravens were glaring at them from high in the trees, and a branch nearly fell on Blue's head as they passed underneath. Adam frowned and scolded the forest for trying to hurt a friend. Adam could tell Blue wanted to protest that she didn't need him to stick up for her, but she let that battle die in her throat. Adam was grateful for it. He didn't want to fight.

As they progressed, the forest gradually darkened. Leaves overhead grew thicker and closer together, until it may as well have been night. Adam had never been this far into Cabeswater, but he found that he wasn't afraid. Rather, he was anxious to understand why it was being so cryptic.

"I wish we'd kept time," Blue commented, hugging herself.

Adam's count didn't waver. "It's been fifteen and a half minutes," he said. "We're almost there." He was glad Blue didn't ask how he knew that. He was getting sick of bringing up the fact that a large part of his mind was inhabited by magical tree intuition. He knew because he knew, and that was that.

"Fifteen? Are you sure? It feels like longer."

Adam began counting out loud so she knew he was competent at keeping time. He had barely reached sixty twice before they reached a small, black clearing.

 

* * *

 

When Gansey and Ronan rolled up to 300 Fox Way, Gansey was deeply uncomfortable. He couldn't remember the last time he had only had one shoe on. It made him feel like he had fallen back a decade in time.

Ronan was surly and uncommunicative. He'd sped the whole way there, only stopping for red lights when Gansey screeched at him to _obey the law, it's there for a reason, for the last time, Lynch_. Gansey had exhausted his efforts trying to get more information out of him, but if there was any, Ronan wasn't forthcoming with it. He seemed to be incapable of doing much more than gripping the steering wheel in a death-like vise and growling if Gansey asked too many questions.

"Adam's car is here," Ronan pointed out.

Gansey's eyebrows furrowed. "What's he doing here?" This was all beginning to get too coincidental for him - especially considering he didn't believe in coincidences.

As Ronan jerked the key out of the ignition, Gansey decided that he couldn't actually go inside. Not when he only had one shoe on. Blue would give him absolute abuse for it until the day he died.

He turned to explain this to Ronan, all thoughts of Adam temporarily subsided, before he realized just how tense Ronan's shoulders were. His jaw was set. Eyes narrowed, the deep flames inside flickering with more verve than usual, Ronan was straddling the edge of something colossal. All at once, Gansey realized how stupid he was being. Wasn't Adam worth more to him than a dirty sock and a few moments of humiliation? Of course he was.

It dominated the conversation for a full six minutes, no matter how many times Ronan brought up Adam. Calla was torn between being completely unimpressed and wholeheartedly amused. Maura, not wearing any shoes herself, beamed. Both of Mr. Gray's eyebrows were raised, though he only spoke when he had a snarky comment to add on top of Maura's.

They almost didn't notice the hole Persephone left.

By the time all of the jokes were wrapping up, Gansey's face a very noticeable shade of red, he set about what they'd come here for. "Could I ask where Blue is? She'll be absolutely appalled that we're having so much fun without her."

Calla's eyebrows made a frown. "You didn't know? She's not home right now. She went with Coca-Cola shirt up to Cabeswater."

Ronan and Gansey shared a _look_.

"You're welcome to stay until they get back," Maura offered, waving a hand, such a simple gesture to indicate the existence of an entire house. "Blue said it wouldn't be long."

 

* * *

 

Noticeably different to the rest of Cabeswater, the clearing stretched before Blue and Adam in a dome of dark trees. No sunlight eclipsed the leaves overhead. Branches of trees thirty feet apart extended into each other. Some of them had broken off, and they dotted the ground like fallen flower stems in comparison.

On top of that, the air seemed agitated; it practically hummed around them, moving through the earth and overhanging trees as though it couldn't quite decide what to do with itself. Blue could feel it whipping around her, making her head vibrate, though she couldn't see it. Her arms itched with it. It was maddening, being around so much power but only able to stand there and watch it coast by -  _ignoring her_. She swallowed and reminded herself,  _Not for long._

Adam immediately took place at the center of the clearing. He had to step over the dilapidated roots, which bent and morphed the ground into an uneven rug of grass. As soon as he found his spot, Adam went into a crouch, pawing at the grass. It took Blue a moment to realize that he was feeling for something.

"It's warm," he murmured.

Intrigued, Blue followed suit from the border of the clearing, surrounded by a line of trees. She could feel the heat before she touched it; but the second her hand made contact, it went cold. She was touching ice. She fought the urge to pout her frustration out.

"Yo, Cabeswater. What up?" Blue's indignant frown spiked with the looming suspicion that none of this behavior was justified. Just because they were sentient trees didn't mean she had to take undeserved crap from them. "What's your beef today?"

As expected, the trees did not answer. 

Adam seemed to be pretending that they were, because his ear was now pressed to the ground. His deaf ear. That was how Blue knew spooky shit was underway. She stood up slowly and watched him, tentative.

"Adam?"

Adam held up a hand to silence her. Normally, she wouldn't have stood for that, but she knew Adam didn't mean it to be insulting. She listened, too, though she was certain she wasn't hearing what Adam was hearing.

Then, she noticed what was happening around her.

Slow, twisting coils of black smoke were rising from the ground. It looked almost grainy, not like regular smoke. A horrible feeling wrenched Blue's stomach. It had nothing to do with frustration.

"Adam," Blue called hesitantly. He straightened so that he was upright on his knees, and at once, the smoke dissipated to nothing. When he turned, his eyes were distant. Blue felt goosebumps rise up and down her body.

"Blue..." he said softly.

"Are we ready to leave?" Blue asked. She'd never truly been afraid of Cabeswater before, but something was off-kilter today. It felt like there was a threat looming over her shoulder, waiting to strike. Like there were eyes on her, piercing and judging. Her chest was tightening with the difficulty to breathe through fear.

She had learned early on that the world always had one more surprise. Today, it was that Cabeswater made her hair stand on end, and her neck prickle like those eyes were slowly advancing. Or maybe it was just the deeply unsettled look on Adam's face.

Maybe it was whatever Adam had said was here - but even if that was the case, she would feel much safer if the others knew about it, too. They weren't prepared. They had to get back. This was clearly one of those things that would only escalate, which meant all hands on deck were needed.

Dazedly, Adam stood up all the way. The fact that he was wobbly made him seem taller. "Why should we leave?" he asked. His accent was slipping. 

"We need to tell the others," Blue reminded him, eyebrows furrowed. She wanted to take a step back, but she remembered the eyes behind her. Nowhere was safe, so she stayed where she was.

Adam shrugged.

"Adam, what are you doing? What did you just hear?"

"The others don't need to know," Adam said simply. He hadn't taken his eyes off her, and his brow was furrowed in a curiously un-Adam expression.

Blue blinked. "What are you talking about? They're our friends." She was trying to be rational, _sensible_ \- but Adam wasn't behaving like himself. His expression was too blank, too... careless.

"Alright."

And while his complacency was all Blue desired, she also thought it had come too easily. She wasn't about to complain, though. Maybe getting away from this place would be the solution. She hesitated, sizing up the situation, then turned on her heel. "Okaylet'sgo."

Blue had thought she would feel safer after realizing that there were no eyes behind her. Instead, she had the startling inkling that they had moved with her. Or that maybe they hadn't been in the trees at all. Adam's footsteps were soft behind her. Blue cursed her short legs. He was on her heels in a matter of seconds, and it took all of Blue's willpower not to turn around and check on him. It was trust, she assured herself. Adam deserved her trust.

She should have looked back.

Before the pain struck, she was on the ground. Grass and dirt broke her fall as the back of her head exploded, buzzing brilliant and echoing with a distorted ring. Blue had to blink away stars, bright and white hot and disorienting. Her fingers twisted in the grass. Had she died? Was she about to? Was she bleeding? She had never so much as broken a bone before, so how was she meant to know how much abuse a body could take?

She rolled onto her back, half-coughing and half-groaning. She tried to look where she had been standing to see what had happened, but her vision was dominated by a tree standing at her feet. No, not a tree.

 _Adam_.

Adam, holding a branch above his head with two hands, looking down at Blue with undeniable hatred. It was cold and clear, and Blue's heart skipped a beat. Instincts took over. She kicked out, catching him in the ankle, throwing his balance. Her head wouldn't stop ringing. She couldn't comprehend this.

Adam would _never_ attack her. They were too important to each other. This had to be a bad dream.

Groaning, wrestling for control over herself, Blue tried to get a grip on the situation. She was already at a major disadvantage. If Adam managed to strike another blow, that would be it.

She didn't say anything like, "What are you doing?" or, "Adam, stop!" People rarely committed assault by accident, and Blue had the feeling he wouldn't stop to explain his motives before killing her.

She was still on the ground. Adam was back on his feet. There was no time to think, no time to do anything. Part of her brain, as a last thought, told her to cast up her shield, to protect her, before remembering that it only worked psychically.

Instead, she cast up her hand to block the blow.

" _NOO_!!"

Blue had never heard a person scream like that. She knew that it hadn't been her or Adam, but that fact alone made it impossible, because no one else had come with them.

All Blue was aware of was Adam flying to the right - no, being tackled. When her mind caught up to her body, she saw the unmistakable form of Noah. He was sitting on Adam, holding him down, ruthless, relentlessly throwing punch after punch and yelling, "NO! NO! NO! NO!" His voice was more guttural and angry than Blue had ever imagined his could be.

"Noah!" Blue gasped out, crawling forward and finding it much easier to stand with relief to combat her pain. "Noah - stop! He doesn't know what he's doing! Noah, please!"

Doubled over, she grabbed Noah by the upper arms. Restraining him was near impossible. He was kicking and thrashing, seeming more corporeal than ever as he struggled against her, and Blue suddenly wished that Ronan and Gansey were here. Ronan could restrain Noah and Gansey could talk sense into Adam. Blue could sit down and assess how badly her head was bleeding. Even now, she could feel liquid cold on her neck and in her hair.

Adam lay on the ground, face bloodied, groaning. His eyes were swiveling around, trying to focus on the sky, and there were several new cuts open on his face. Guilt hit Blue like a wave of nausea. She hadn't seen Adam bruised and battered for a long time, and she had still no desire to see it now, no matter what he had done.

And then he was up, like a phantom. "Blue?" he asked, clearly confused. "What happened?"

Noah was still struggling against her, the only thing keeping him there the influx of energy from Cabeswater and Blue. She held tighter.

"Adam, Christ," she gasped. "Are you okay? What did you hear?"

He gave her a look that registered as oddly beseeching. "There was a voice... He called to me... My name..."

Adam's whole body went rigid, and the careless mask was back. Without another word, he turned heel and sprinted through the trees. Blue was still holding Noah, the both of them catching their breath and staring after him.

"Can I let go of you?" she asked. Noah didn't answer, so she didn't let go of him.

After a moment he asked, voice soft but still shaking with rage, "Are you alright?"

Blue tested his trustworthiness. She loosened her grip. When he didn't move, she dropped her arms and closed her eyes, heart hammering. "I'll live." Then, she cringed at the insensitivity of her words.

"Good," Noah said firmly. He said it in the same way he might say _Fuck Adam_. "That was all I wanted."

"We have to go after him," Blue said, though all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and let herself process and heal. "There's no knowing what's going on with him, or what he might do."

Noah stepped behind her to critically examine her wound.

"How much blood is there?" Blue asked in an unsteady voice. She could still feel it trickling down her neck.

"None," Noah replied calmly. She felt his fingers with their freezing prods to the back of her skull. He touched where the branch had connected, and Blue winced. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Blue said softly. She tentatively felt around with her own fingers. They came back dry and clean, and her heartbeat calmed just a little. She still felt the blood, but knowing it was only a sensation of expectation made it better.

"What happened? Why did Adam do this to you, Blue?" Noah asked. "And _why_ would you say he didn't mean it?"

Blue bit her lip. "Because," she said thoughtfully. "I have to believe it. Because if I believe it, that means we can get him back to normal."

"He tried to kill you."

Noah was resolute, but so was Blue. "I don't see any blood."

She spent the walk begging Cabeswater to let them out as fast as possible and explaining her side of the story to Noah. The more she thought it through in her own mind, the more she realized that she truly did believe Adam was innocent. His mannerisms didn't add up. Cabeswater had to have been influencing him.

The moment she noticed that their surroundings were beginning to turn lighter, she relaxed. Noah was traipsing beside her, looking determined, never ducking out of her line of vision. She assumed this was mostly for her benefit. This walk would be infinitely worse if she'd had to suffer it alone.

Soon, the trees were growing with more space between them. Light was welcomed. Cabeswater seemed to be apologizing to Blue for it poor hospitality, as though she'd witnessed a domestic altercation while staying for dinner. Blue flowers were sprouting at their feet, guiding them out of the forest.

Blue found that she held no animosity. She patted a tree fondly as she crossed the threshold to the real world.

"Blue." Noah spoke quietly, but it stole her attention. He was staring at the blank expanse of road stretching out on either side of them. "Where's your car?"

She looked as far as her eyes could see in each direction. There was only an endless expanse of road.

"Shit."

So, not only was Blue stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, she was also grounded.

"Wait here. I'll get Gansey. Try to rest, but don't fall asleep," Noah said.

For once, Blue didn't object. She sat down, hugged her knees, and mumbled, "Tell him to hurry." Noah gave her a hug, ruffled her hair, and vanished. Blue took in a shuddering breath and, determined not to waste time feeling sorry for herself and being useless, drew up battle plans.

 

* * *

 

The last of Blue's anxiety washed out of her when she saw the Pig zipping along in the distance. She'd never thought she would be so happy to see that hideous monstrosity. Now, it looked like a safe haven. She stood as Gansey got closer, dirt tearing out from his tires as he sped toward her.

When he screeched to a halt, the driver side door was already opening. Gansey emerged, face white, already halving the distance between them. He was wearing his glasses.

"Jane, are you alright? Christ, I - I was at your house, they said you left with Adam. We were waiting for you to get back. Noah showed up and - and - and..." He steeled himself and said lowly, "And, to be quite frank, I'm fairly certain I just experienced the worst moment in my life so far."

Blue's jaw tightened. She found that she couldn't yet form words. Gansey was at arm's distance, judging the damage, but he stood apart from her. It was like his eyes were the all he would permit to broach the distance between them. They were the only things that had no chance of hurting her.

Blue closed the gap. She put her arms around his neck and laid her cheek on his chest. His arms immediately encircled her, and she found that this was the perfect position to cry in.

Gansey said nothing. He ran his fingers over Blue's back and gently through her hair. She thought, if he listened close enough, she could hear him wishing. It was less painful (though still quite agonizing) to listen to the steady beating of his heart. She breathed shakily.

"Blue, I cannot tell you how glad I am you're alright," he breathed. By the shoulders, he held her at face value. She hastily wiped her eyes. "You _are_ alright, aren't you? I mean, for the most part?" He made a face at himself.

Blue bit her lip and blinked. "Of course. I always am."

Gansey looked rueful at the situation. "You always are." He held her close again, her hair clips jutting into his jaw before Blue pushed him away.

"We have to find Adam," she reminded him. "How much did Noah tell you?"

"Not much," Gansey admitted. "He didn't have a lot of time. Ronan practically dragged him out to help find Adam. I barely convinced him to check Monmouth first so I could get the Pig."

Blue told him, "I'm just glad you're here."

"Come on, Jane, let's get you in the car," Gansey said, though she saw the relief school his features as he shifted back into Gansey the Leader. All of his chess pieces were moving again, and he had to get ready to put them in check. She wished he would be _her_ Gansey right now, but she also suspected that he didn't have much choice in who he was. Besides, she told herself, the fact that he was here made him her Gansey.

As they climbed into the Camaro, Gansey took Blue's hand. Blue let him. It gave her something to distract herself with when he asked, "Now, Jane, what happened?" She was silent for a moment, simply running her fingers over his knuckles, adoring the even stretch of his skin, as Gansey turned them around and started making his way back toward the road.

"Adam called me and said he was worried about Cabeswater," Blue told him. "He asked me to come with him to check it out, so I did. I didn't think - I didn't know he would..." She held her breath to calm down, then let it out in a slow sigh. When she spoke again, her words were level and deliberate. She was using them to master the fear that had held her steady for too long today. She was with Gansey, she was safe. All there was left to do was get the facts out. "He said there was something in Cabeswater. We went inside, to this clearing. He was listening to the ground, and then this black smoke started coming up-"

"Black smoke?" Gansey repeated, his eyes wide and horrified.

"Yes, why? Is that bad?" Blue asked, basing her stifled panic off of his expression.

Gansey stuck his eyes back on the road. "It wouldn't be so bad, if not for the fact that I've already heard that once today." And he quickly informed her of his and Ronan's ordeals from that morning.

"Coincidence," Blue whispered when he had finished, because she'd always wanted to be the one to declare it when it wasn't a coincidence. She found that her turn was not as fun as it looked when the others did it.

"Sorry, keep going," Gansey said, as they turned back onto main roads.

Blue continued, "I think he was listening to whatever brought us there. To the thing invading Cabeswater. And I think, somehow - don't quote me on this - that it got inside of him. It's not a concrete theory, but it's my only explanation. We all know that Adam would never attack me, and Cabeswater was _not_ being friendly to me today. If the thing in Cabeswater doesn't like me, and it got inside Adam, _that's_ the only reason I can think of that he would do that. It's the only thing that makes sense."

After a moment of silence, Gansey said quietly, "I agree." His hand was still pliant in both of Blue's. Blue thought he might have been concentrating on that more than the road, so, in the interest of not dying, she released it. Immediately, her heart was wanting.

"So, Ronan's looking for Adam?" Blue asked.

Gansey nodded, the leader in him happy to be back on track. Blue could see that her Gansey, however, was just as disappointed at the loss of contact as she was. Not for the first or last time, she wished she could kiss him. Not for the first or last time, she sat back and let the moment pass.

"He and Noah are searching the town - speaking of Noah. He said you hit your head badly," Gansey said. "How badly?"

"Am I still supposed to be hearing ringing?" Blue joked. Gansey, aghast, nearly crashed into a guard rail. He swerved at the last second, his foot slamming on the break, a car behind him screeching to avoid collision.

"Bl-!"

"I wasn't serious!" Blue cried, throwing her hand on the headrest to check behind them. The woman in the other car was leaned back, hand over her heart, but seemed unharmed. "I'm fine, Gansey, I promise. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have joked."

Gansey gave her a reproachful look. "No, you shouldn't have," he agreed. Some time between sarcasm and lots of mistakes, something in the Camaro had ruptured. Instead of a healthy engine sound, there was a rattling somewhere. The car had shut off on its own. Blue wondered why the boys around her couldn't scrounge enough car parts to make one satisfactory vehicle.

Gansey swore. He opened the door and ran to check under the hood, rolling up his sleeves. Blue sat back and let her heart get back under control. The woman was getting out of her car, presumably to see what was wrong, but with a single wave from Gansey, she was climbing back in and continuing on her way. Blue sighed, unbuckled, and opened the door.

It slammed shut behind her because the Camaro door's only setting was slam, and she didn't make any attempt to hide her approach, but Gansey still did not acknowledge her. In some ways, that was worse.

"How do you honestly feel, Blue?" he asked. His voice was soft, but not delicate. It sounded like he was being quiet more for himself than Blue. For this reason, she didn't lie to him.

"Not fantastic, but I'll live. If I don't think about it, I can ignore the pain - but when the car stopped and my head slammed back, I'm still feeling it throb."

Gansey nodded as if to say _I imagined so_. "Would you make a fuss if I told you I wanted to take you to the hospital?" he asked, looking up from the lightly steaming under-the-hood. The look he gave Blue was somewhat desperate in its intensity. "Of course, I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to do, but if you do say you think you're fine, I would probably count that as your compromised mind talking, and insist you need to be taken anyway."

"The _hospital_ , Gansey?" Blue asked. "You think my family can afford hospital bills on my account?"

"You _know_ I could and would cover it, Blue, so don't play that card," Gansey said, exasperated.

"And _you_ know why I don't want you to do that," Blue shot back. She was beginning to feel her fire returning to her, so, in a way, she was glad that she and Gansey were fighting. It brought herself back to her.

Gansey said, "Frankly, I don't. I don't understand why you or Adam will go _so far_ to deny something that isn't any trouble."

A part of Blue wanted to laugh. "You're going to make me say it?" she asked. When Gansey was silent, a dare in itself, she drove it home. "It's not _fair_. I wasn't born with your privilege, Gansey, so I'm not going to use it. I've never thought it's right to cheat."

Gansey raised his eyebrows. His face was an immaculate mask. "Is that what you think of me? I'm a cheater?" His words betrayed none of what he was feeling.

"I think you're careless with your money in a way a lot of people wish they could be," Blue said lowly. Another car whizzed past them, whipping her clothes around her. "I think if I used your money, it would be a slap in the face to them. And, what's more, it would make my family beneath yours. If a seventeen year old kid is paying our bills, what does that say about us?"

"I would never see it like that, you know I wouldn't."

"That doesn't mean _we_ wouldn't."

Blue had never been one to back down from eye battles, and she didn't now. Gansey looked away, at the one problem he might be able to fix. He sighed. "The - thing. It's loose," he explained. "The thing. The belt thing."

"Okay," Blue said evenly.

Gansey didn't make any move to fix it. "Please go to the hospital, Blue. It would put my mind at rest."

Blue didn't answer. She turned around and got back in the car.

She couldn't see what Gansey was doing with the hood blocking the windshield, but when he came back into view, there was a streak of something car-related on his tragic, lime green polo shirt. She didn't know what he was mumbling, but it was probably something foul. Now that she wasn't under the pressure of his gaze, it was easier to sympathize with him. Most of this was her mistake.

He opened the door, reached over, and stuck the key in the ignition. There was barely a moment of victory when it successfully turned over. He didn't stay in the car. Blue pursed her lips when the door slammed, watching him angrily strut to the back of the car and root around in the trunk. She looked away when he pulled off his shirt.

Instead, she looked to the horizon, where storm clouds appeared to be rolling in. Curiously, Blue poked her head forward. It had been a while since Henrietta had gotten any rain. She hoped it wouldn't interfere with her work schedule - she had a shift at Nino's tomorrow, which she would hopefully still be able to make. They could figure out what to do with Adam before then, right?

The door opened again, and Gansey climbed in. He was no longer in his polo. When Blue looked back from the rain clouds, she noticed with a pang that he had changed into an Aglionby sweater.

"How far is the hospital?" she asked in a weak voice.

 

* * *

 

Blue had sounded truly panicked when she asked Gansey to stay, so he did. He sat in a purple chair outside of her room and waited for clearance to enter, and when he got it, he sat in a purple chair next to her bed. She was sitting up, playing with her fingers. She looked exhausted.

"What did they say?" Gansey asked.

"More or less that I'm going to be fine," Blue said. She smiled tiredly. "Does that mean your mind is at rest?"

Gansey patted her hands. "Very much so, Jane, you have no idea."

Blue nodded as if that was enough. Gansey had never known that his heart could be hungry, too. Blue busied herself redoing a clip in her hair as she asked, "Any news on Adam? What time is it?"

"Just before noon," Gansey answered. He checked his phone more on principle than any notion that news would have changed. "I've called Ronan seven times, in between nurses yelling at me. The only thing I've gotten is a text saying 'no luck yet.' It's amazing how he manages to convey a scowl through electronic words."

After that, there was a lot of hand holding and not-talking. There was a lot of not-much-of-anything. There was a lot of being in each other's presence. It was a very Gansey and Blue moment. Everything unspoken but no less apparent. Moments like these were part of the reason Gansey still didn't believe that her feelings for him could be real. Which, he supposed, was the desired outcome. It was why they _didn't_ talk. They were pretending. Sometimes he forgot.

In that silence, Gansey was thinking about Blue, and he supposed that Blue was thinking about Gansey. That was a very selfish thing to think but, of course, that was why he thought it.

He wasn't entirely present when Blue said softly, "Gansey-"

She was cut off by the door opening. Ronan and Noah stepped inside, Ronan definitely looking the worse for wear. Noah's eyes immediately found Blue, and his body gave the impression of a sigh of relief. Gansey stood at attention, waiting for news. "Well?" he asked.

"Nothing," Ronan spat, more frustrated than anything else. Gansey could relate.

Noah asked softly, “How are you feeling, Blue?” He was watching her sadly. Gansey sat down again, frowning in his concentration, feeling a little guilty that, in all this time, _he_ hadn't asked.

“Like I was attacked with a branch by someone who works three manual labor jobs,” she said pleasantly. Then, more solemnly, “Like we need to find Adam before whatever's inside of him does what it wants to use his body for.” With that, she hopped up from the bed, and Gansey mirrored her. He stuck out his hands.

“Whoa, whoa, Jane. You need rest. Adam could be anywhere, and I'd never forgive myself if I allowed you to come in this state.”

Blue shot him a harsh look, and Gansey’s insides withered. “It's lucky you're not in charge of me, then,” she reminded him angrily. Gansey cursed his troublesome mouth. Surely she had to know by now that he was only speaking out of concern?

Okay, now he saw the condescending. Maybe she was justified.

From next to the window, Ronan snorted. “She sounds fine to me.”

“And I'll look through Cabeswater so I don't accidentally take any of her energy,” Noah offered.

“Noah, you don't have to do that,” Blue began, but Noah cut her off with a sad smile.

“I'd do anything for you, Blue,” he said candidly. “I'm just really glad you're okay.” He patted her head and vanished, leaving Gansey staring between them with a complex expression.

“He'd do _anything_ for you?” Gansey echoed. He didn't think he'd said it as coolly as he'd meant to, and he bit the inside of his cheek as Ronan snorted.

“Please, be less subtle, Gansey,” he pleaded sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

“I - it's not that!” Gansey sputtered, and his thumb instinctively went to his lower lip. “I just - that's a curious thing to say - is all. With the conversation we were having. Deep. Ahem.” He dropped his hands.

Blue raised both eyebrows and Gansey glanced away. He pulled at his collar in a vain attempt to stymie the heat of the room. He couldn't seem to look at Blue again.

He glanced wildly to Ronan for back up, but Ronan only stared out the window, a jagged grin smothered by years of practice. The room had to be ninety degrees.

“Sorry, Gansey,” Blue said sarcastically. “I know you and Noah are really close. I'll try to keep a friendly distance between us, I won't encroach on your territory.” She nodded solemnly.

Ronan said, “Gansey.”

Gansey gave a weak clearing of his throat, quite uncomfortable with the change in conversation, and squeaked, “I think we should find Adam. For all we know, he could be destroying Cabeswater.”

“He's not destroying Cabeswater.” Ronan's tone was absolute, though he didn't look away from the window to say it.

“Oh. Can you feel it?” Gansey asked. He was never quite sure how far his two best friends' connections to Cabeswater ran. Slowly, he was getting used to trusting their feelings.

Ronan said calmly, “No. I know he isn't destroying Cabeswater because I'm watching him destroy the Pig.”

“He's _what_?!”

 

* * *

 

Adam was putting the dismantled pieces of the Pig into a tattered duffel bag when Ronan caught up to him and pinned his arms behind his back. Adam snarled, and Ronan growled in his ear.

"Do you know how hard I worked for that shit, Parrish?" he hissed. "I spent a weekend with _Kavinsky_ for that." Adam kicked at Ronan's legs, but his feet may as well have been pillows for all that Ronan cared. "My brother got  _kidnapped_ because of that."

"Let me go, Lynch, or I'll start screaming. Nobody's going to view assault very highly in a very public hospital parking lot." His face was so close to Ronan that his lips grazed Ronan's cheek when he talked. Ronan couldn't take much pleasure in it, considering most of his face suggested he hated every fiber of Ronan's being.

Ronan tightened his grip. Not enough to hurt, but definitely enough to make a statement. "Or in an enchanted forest. Care to explain before the people with consciences get here?"

Adam stopped thrashing, but he didn't answer. Instead, he only repeated, "Let me go, Lynch."

"On the list of things that are close to happening, that's just behind me and Declan gathering around the fire to sing Christmas songs to each other."

Adam narrowed his eyes. "I can see why he hates you, you know. Declan." This jarred Ronan, but didn't bruise him. He was impervious to the notion of truth hurting. For Ronan, it was everything _except_ the truth that hurt. "You never do as you're fucking told. You think you're in charge because you're a brute, you think your dreams make you special, you think that your decision is the best decision."

Ronan was not stung by these words. Rather, their intended effect was reversed. Ronan's anger fizzed and out, and he was simply exasperated stone holding a spitting boy. "Are you done?" he asked calmly. "You know, you're wasting the only time we have to talk. When you can _explain yourself_ without Gansey Ganseying over everything."

"I don't have to tell you shit, Lynch."

Ronan shrugged, an act that jostled Adam's torso as well. "Fair enough."

A moment later, Blue and Gansey were walking out the main entrance, an assortment of hospital discharge paperwork fluttering in Gansey's hand. He looked both ways before striding through the parking lot toward them, expression that of a kicked puppy, with Blue in tow, who looked apprehensive and angry. Ronan continued to hold Adam as they got closer, though Adam made no attempt to fight.

"Adam, what's gotten into you?" Gansey asked, scandalized, before he was properly close enough for civil conversation - which he obviously aimed for this to be.

" _Who_ ," Blue corrected.

"Yes, thanks, Queen of Cryptic Dramatics," snapped Ronan. "Can we get him in a car before someone sees and calls the cops on me?"

Gansey patted Ronan's arm placatingly. "You're doing the Lord's work, Lynch. As you command. You take Adam in the BMW, go to Jane's house. I'll put the Pig back together and follow in a few minutes."

Ronan raised an eyebrow, then nodded once to the Pig, his skeptical eyes trained on Gansey. "You think _you_ have what it takes to put it back together?"

Gansey rubbed his hands together, grinning. "I've been training for this my whole life! It'll be like a Christmas jigsaw puzzle," he enthused.

"Christ, you're such a pretentious-"

"Actually, Jane, my name is Gansey, not Christ. And there's nothing wrong with jigsaw puzzles at Christmas with the family. Come give me a hand with this thing," Gansey interrupted, motioning toward the dormant duffel, lying sad and abandoned and so full of Gansey's heart. Looking at it, and then at Gansey, Ronan got the impression that his business-like manner was a facade. Gansey was worried. Ronan soured. It was close enough to a lie from Gansey that he felt anger start to stir up in him again.

Blue moved to follow Gansey, but Ronan growled, "Excuse me, Geniuses, how do you expect me to drive _and_ take care of him at the same time?"

"Excellent point," Gansey muttered sportingly. "Alright, Jane can drive. Noah and I will figure this out, I suppose."

"Ahem. _Who_ can drive?" Blue asked, her voice matching her size for once.

Ronan snarled, "What are you, a fucking owl? Get in the car." He was already hauling Adam towards the backseat.

He knew that she was trying to appear tough for his sake, but it was really fucking unnecessary now that Parrish had started kicking again. Ronan just wanted to get this over with. As Noah told Gansey, "I don't know anything _about_ fixing cars," Blue slipped into the front seat, and Ronan dragged Adam into the back.

"Keys?" Blue asked, in the idle way she did when she was pretending she wasn't nervous.

Ronan huffed, "Visor." He laid Adam over his lap, on his side, and held him that way, blocking futile swings and ignoring angry remarks. He watched Blue gingerly peel back the overhead visor, then extract that spare keys from the elastic band. She started the car like she was petting a poodle, not saddling a merciless war horse.

"For Christ's sake, maggot, this car has been through a lot worse than 45-mile-an-hour zones. Give it a little fucking gas. I can't hold Parrish all day," Ronan grouched, though his second secret played in the background.

Blue snapped, "Don't yell at me! It's a miracle I can even pull out of this parking lot in your behemoth of a car." She was hunched over the wheel, the seat pushed all the way forward, her gaze scrutinizing and overly cautious for someone driving Ronan's car.

"You've spent too much time with Gansey," Ronan muttered, as Adam tried to bite his wrist. Ronan halfheartedly swatted at him. _Knock it off_. Louder, he told Blue, "I'm not giving you a pass just because you hit your head. _Drive_ , or I'll lean over the fucking chair and do it myself."

The car accelerated nominally, and Blue ground out, "I will _not_ be sorry for one second if this thing crashes."

"I can fucking pay for it, Sargent. If we aren't going triple digits by the time we get to the main road, I'll hog tie Gansey and stick him in a tree."

"Ha!" Blue muttered. "Call me beforehand, I'll help."

 


	2. Chapter 2

Ronan was doing an Irish jig on Blue's last nerve by the time they pulled up to 300 Fox Way. To Blue's credit, she had only stalled three times during her extreme battle to keep her temper. He had taken to screaming the murder squash song in Adam's face to combat the onslaught of verbal abuse, so all Blue could think about while trying to mind the speedometer in a school zone was,

"SQUASH ONE-"

"-like the overcontrolling-"

_You're just adding fuel to the fire, you asshole._

"SQUASH TWO-"

"-bastard you are, when-"

_Left turn, Blue, don't miss your stupid turn-_

"SQUASH THREE-"

"-kill you all, wake him myself!"

Blue got out of the car without looking back. She was fairly sure she had never slammed a door so hard in her life, nor had she ever had such an urge to scream in public. It was a true testimony to her stress management skills that she hadn't found a cliff and driven over it just to shut them _up_.

A second floor window was open. Out of it leaned Gwenllian, dangling mason jars full of water with her incredibly long arms, trying to splash as far into the road as she could. Well, belatedly, Blue _hoped_ that it was water.

"Hey! You!" Blue shouted up at her, none too kindly. Gwenllian shattered the jar against the side of the house to indicate she had heard. "Get downstairs! I need to talk to you!"

Gwenllian gave a hysterical hum and spat into the dead flowers beneath her window, then retreated inside and slid the glass panes delicately shut after her. Blue hurried up the steps, hands over her ears, as she heard the car door open behind her and Ronan gearing into the second verse.

The kitchen was still a mess from Maura's earlier romantic escapade, though she and the Gray Man were nowhere to be seen. Artemus had stayed that first night, then vanished again with the rising sun. He hadn't been heard from since, but Blue thought it wouldn't be long until he turned up again. She was getting used to the cycle of time that came with ley lines and waking sleepers.

"Why have yooooooooooooooou summoned me?" Gwenllian sang, an octave higher than she should have tried to go. Blue didn't bother to conceal her wince.

"Squash three, squash four-"

" _RONAN_!"

Ronan burst through the door, Adam thrown over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, belting the words as loud as he could. He stopped abruptly when Gwenllian joined along, staring at him with wide, unblinking eyes, not missing a beat. She carried on after him, and if Blue thought she had known hell before, then she thanked her brain for never conceiving the idea of Gwenllian being aware of the murder squash song.

Gwenllian threw her long arms in the air, waving them about as she carried through to the end of the song, then collapsed dramatically against the sink, her head dipping into the dry basin. Ronan's lip was curled like his greatest treasure had been pissed on. Even Adam was struck dumb.

"Gwenllian," he breathed, staring at her like he wasn't sure he was saying the correct name.

"Hello, friend of father," Gwenllian said. Her tone was surprisingly neutral, considering her usual mannerisms.

Adam's eyes narrowed, and he glanced at Blue. It was furtive, like he was trying to gauge her response to what Gwenllian had said. This, of course, made Blue respond to what Gwenllian had said.

"Friend of father?" she echoed.

Gwenllian reached behind her ear and turned on the tap. It trickled down her chin and around her neck. She groaned in boredom. "Faaaather's friend, friend of father, not one to suffer fools, nor bury daughters!"

Blue saw Ronan stiffen. "What?"

Gwenllian re-positioned herself so that the water flooded into her mouth. Blue surged forward and pulled her out of the sink, too sensible to risk the idea that that had been anything other than a carefully planned, ultimately harmless stunt of boredom.

"What did you mean when you said that, Gwenllian? Tell me," Blue urged. Gwenllian, sopping from nose to neck, surveyed her warily. She spit a stream of water onto the floor and made an exaggerated scowl.

"Any time now," Ronan snapped, snapping.

"I will do as I am bid, sir knight!" she cackled. Rather than being offended, she seemed amused and spurred on by Ronan's aggressive tone. "Truth? Truth! Truth, you hold my faaaaaather's friend in thine graaaaaaasp!"

Adam did a curious thing. He looked at Blue like he was trying to gauge how much she had reacted to Gwenllian's words; this, of course, made Blue react differently to Gwenllian's words than she otherwise would have. She said, "Your father's friend? What does that mean?"

"Father's friend, friend of father. Not one to suffer fools, nor bury daughters!" Her voice was a hysterically passionate screech. Blue's neck itched at the uncomfortable friction of it.

"She's batshit," Ronan declared. "She never knows what she's saying. Get her out of here, we have enough problems to deal with already."

Adam cried, "No!" and every eye shot to him. He looked like he hadn't meant to speak, but now that he had, he was going to roll with it. He swallowed audibly and hit at Ronan's shoulder. "Put me down."

Ronan snorted. "Like hell."

"I mean it," Adam said, and he gave a single, desperate thrash for punctuation. "I won't run. I just want to see her."

"See her?" Blue repeated. "Gwenllian? You want to see  _Gwenllian_? Why do you want to see Gwenllian?"

"Do as he says," Gwenllian murmured, her voice low and ancient. It was not her normal voice. "I desire his proximity."

"You 'desire his proximity'?" Ronan echoed derisively. "Well, tough shit. I'm not letting go just for him to run out the door and take apart my car, then shit on everything I went through to get him here."

"I  _won't run_ ," Adam insisted, his voice a lower register, more determined than usual. His eyes hadn't broken from Gwenllian, burning with a fierce sort of urgency. His body was deathly still, draped over Ronan's shoulder as comfortably as a flagpole.

"Like hell," Ronan said conclusively.

Blue stepped in. "Ronan." Her voice sounded more mature than it usually did. Encouraged by the regal nature of it, she coaxed out the small part of her that was incredibly tuned in to Gansey and brought it forth. "Let him down."

Ronan looked like he couldn't believe his ears. Gwenllian's head swiveled dramatically as she sought to decipher Blue's statement. "You've got to be kidding me, Sargent."

"I'm not kidding," she said. She kept her words measured and calm. "You block one door, I'll block the other. Of course, I won't stand a chance, but the second it'll take for him to plow through me is enough for you to catch up him."

Gwenllian nodded rapidly. She sunk to her knees and held her arms out to Ronan - no, to  _Adam_.

"Christ, okay, okay. Just stop doing  _that_ ," Ronan hissed. He backed up to the door and, with Blue positioned mirroring him, set Adam down. For a moment, there was only tile between he and the collapsed Gwenllian. And then he crossed the room in a single bound. After that, it was a ferocious pull-and-tug of hands and mouths as their passionate embrace began.

Blue had seen some disturbing things in her life. Occasionally to the point where she was speechless. Sometimes to the point where her jaw dropped. Never to this point.

Her entire brain faltered like a corrupted computer. She triple checked that this was reality. Then, she quadruple checked that her eyes were working.

She looked at Ronan. His shock was also apparent, but it was much less  _Ronan_ than her experience suggested it should be. His surprise made him softer. Or, at least, _this_ surprise did. He had fallen away, eyes wide, into himself. When he saw Blue still gaping, he shut down. It was like metal walls had crashed down and shielded him from her view. She'd never realized just how good Ronan was at shutting people out. She thought that maybe she'd just glimpsed the real Ronan for the first time.

Gwenllian and Adam still had their mouths on each other like fish trying to suck the ocean dry. Blue felt slightly nauseous.

"Quit staring, maggot," Ronan growled. His words were sharp again, sharper than ever, piercing Blue like glass shrapnel. Mechanically, Ronan crossed the kitchen and pulled Adam away, then tossed him to the side like filth that should not stain a rich boy's hands. Blue didn't know how to begin reasoning him out - or reasoning Adam - or  _any of this_.

Adam landed next to the pan cabinet, his chest heaving and eyes hungry. Blue felt apprehension creep up her back. It seemed like an invisible line connected Gwenllian's and Adam's gazes, and it couldn't be interrupted by anyone who wasn't involved with it. After a moment, Gwenllian sagged to the side - almost in a swoon - and yelled shrilly, "Remedy? Remedyyyyyyyy! Do I offer my services as witchy witch?"

Ronan raised his eyebrows threateningly, but left whatever comment had popped up locked inside. Blue was glad for it.

"You mean you can help Adam?" she pressed.

Gwenllian blinked hazily at her, as though she had just woken from deep sleep and had no idea where she was, her too-large eyes as unsettling as they were probing. Blue didn't let it intimidate her. She stood (as) tall (as she could). A glance at Adam solidified her resolve. It was for him. He was still on the ground, his palms stationed just behind his hips to hold him up as he gazed at Gwenllian. The look in his eyes held no emotion that Adam would have ever felt for her.

"How about this?" Ronan piped up. "If you fix him, I won't kill you right now." The words were razors spewed from his throat. Gwenllian raised herself taller on haughty shoulders. Whatever her skin was made of, it was clearly razor-proof.

"I'd like to see you try," Adam snarled.

Ronan snorted. He leeched ice-cold venom into the air. "As if you could stop me."

No, Blue thought. He really, really couldn't. She didn't know what had set Ronan off, but he was locked on maximum - or, rather, the highest anger setting that Blue had ever seen Ronan hit. She certainly hoped it was maximum. She wasn't sure there was much room left for him to expand without ending up arrested.

Looking proud, Adam said, "I wasn't talking about  _me_.  _She_ wouldn't let you. Do you know what  _witch_ means?"

"Curs-ed caves, stolen graves, witchy-witch, keep off the b-"

"If you sing one more song, I will lock you upstairs all night," Blue cut in. "If you're going to help us, help us. If not, scram."

Gwenllian listed off several herbs in rapid succession; it was Ronan's job to remember the list and Blue's job to race around the house and collect it all. When she'd pulled the last ingredient from a shoe box in the back of Orla's closet, Gwenllian set to work.

"Table, table," she ordered, humming theatrically, sometimes switching to shrieking for a brief burst, as she threw her gathered ingredients into a shallow wooden bowl from the cupboard. Ronan and Blue sat Adam at the table and held him there. Gwenllian's remedy gave off a few colorful sparks and gun-like pops.

Calla was storming down the stairs like the house was on fire, shouting profanity so creative that it may as well have been an art form. She almost put Ronan to shame. Skidding to a halt in the kitchen doorway, she turned a blotchy red at the scene before her and bellowed, "ABSOLUTELY NOT! IF YOU THINK FOR ONE SECOND-"

"Calla, wait!" Blue cried, throwing up her hands, but there was no need. Calla had cut herself off an instant before Blue tried. She was staring at Adam, her finger hanging suspensefully in midair, her expression muted to a dangerous level of blank.

"Reading room," Calla ordered through clenched teeth. She tugged Blue out of the room by the arm, the last thing Blue heard Gwenllian correcting, "No,  _table_."

As soon as Blue eclipsed the door frame, Calla yanked it shut. Her voice was low and scorching. "Your friend has a serious problem."

"We  _know_ , Calla," Blue whispered urgently.

"And you went to  _that_ before you came to me?" Blue caught the note of hurt in Calla's voice, and she'd never felt more ashamed.

She weakly protested, "It just happened like that." In her distress, her accent slipped. She felt a curious sensation of homesickness that she couldn't place. It didn't feel like regular homesickness. More like a yearning for a time in her life that was less riddled with pain. Calla bristled. "I don't want to leave them alone out there. What is it?"

Perhaps sensing that this situation was bigger than her injured pride, Calla said gravely, "Danger." Dread shot into Blue's stomach. "That boy is doomed."

"Don't say that." Blue's hands were shaking like a rope stretched taut. "Help us."

Calla gave a listless shrug. "I don't know how," she said. "All I can see is that that boy has been pulled into something far bigger than he is. Something dangerous. As if he didn't have enough on his plate already. Someone else is within him, and there is hardly room to spare. Splitting any one of them from the other could be disastrous. It could rupture h-"

Calla stopped talking, or Blue assumed she did, because Blue jetted out of the room. In the kitchen, Adam's back was pressed along the table, Ronan holding him in down with a mutinous expression, and Gwenllian was smearing the concoction from her fizzing wooden bowl over Adam's forehead and left cheek. Frozen in place, staring in horror, Blue waited for his face to melt of his soul to collapse.

Adam screamed. Ronan growled. Gwenllian laughed hysterically. Calla stepped into the room behind Blue and clutched at the counter. Only for the purpose of adding chaos to chaos, the psychic hotline began to ring in the other room.

"Stop!" Blue shouted. "Everyone just. _Stop_. We have to think, we have to sort this-! ...Is that Nutella?"

Gwenllian, smearing brown over Adam's forehead with a rubber spatula, broke out in a wicked grin. "No, 'tis a remedy!" she cackled, then drew a large streak from Adam's temple to his chin. "Remedy, remedy, remedy!"

"Stop that," Ronan hissed, pushing her away with a single shove. It worked only because she allowed it, then went the extra mile as she made a show of crumpling to the floor.

"So you were just messing with us?" demanded Blue. "You didn't know a way to help him?"

Gwenllian's only answer was another hideous cackle. Blue recognized Ronan's overwhelming desire to strangle the laugh out of her, because she shared that urge. She didn't tell him not to so as not to sound a hypocrite.

Everyone in the room was caught off guard when Adam took advantage of their weakness, sprang up, and rocketed out the front door. Blue was only two steps after him by the time he was halfway across the yard.

Very clearly, she heard him shout something back at them, but realized only after he was sprinting across the street that it had been in another language.

"Ronan!" Blue cried. "Get in the car, we have to go after him!"

"Yes, yes, chase all night!" Gwenllian encouraged, deliriously happy. She clapped her hands and pressed her palms into her cheeks. "My loooooove!"

"WILL SOMEONE ANSWER THAT DAMN PHONE?" Calla bellowed, tearing out of the room with all the power of a condensed hurricane. Blue felt sorry indeed for the person on the other end of that line, but she had more important things to worry about.

"Ronan!" she yelled again, but Ronan, stoic, did not indicate he had heard her. His face had hardened into stone, his eyes dark and, rather than holding their usual fire, cold. Dead-looking. His neck seemed to crane in slow motion, his anger seeping into him in so deathly a manner that Blue felt chills in her arms. She was dumbfounded.

"Ro-"

"Let him fucking run if he wants to go so damn badly," Ronan snarled. His words were like a burning blockade, encapsulating and scalding the both of them. Blue glared through the side of his head, at his furiously tightening jaw, because he refused to look anywhere but as his own clenched fist.

"What are you talking about? After everything  _I_ went through to get him here, we're not letting him out of our sight!" Blue yelled. "So pull yourself together, stow your baggage, and start moving! We're going after him!"

"For what fucking point, Sargent?" Ronan demanded. He turned the full force of his blistering stare on her, but she'd be damned if Ronan Lynch would get the best of her today. She glared back, and she put all of her willpower, fury, and indignation into it. She wasn't going to lose this time. She would stare into the sun to prove her point. She wasn't looking away.

"Good news!"

They looked away at the same time, just as Gansey wrested the door open and handed Blue a familiar set of keys - the keys to the 300 Fox Way communal car. She was only nominally relieved. "We found your car! The Pig... well, that's a different story, but as soon as Adam's back to normal he can help me. Where is he?"

His pause was so expectant that it was almost comical.

"Excellent question," Blue said fiercely. Gansey seemed to realize now that he had intruded on something quite tense. He froze, both hands in the air, and looked between them. Silence settled, absolute and cutting.

When Ronan offered no input, Gansey, now looking slightly panicked, asked Blue, "Where  _is_ he?"

Blue said this to Ronan with utmost venom, "We're looking for him. He needs our help."

Ronan snorted derisively. "It didn't look like it, leprechaun."

Gansey paled. "What happened?"

Gwenllian interjected, in that same language Adam had shouted from the yard. She collapsed into a dramatic heap and began giggling hysterically. Gansey's brow furrowed, clearly stumped by this piece of the family Christmas puzzle.

"What is that?" Blue demanded of Gwenllian. She was tempted to press her boot into Gwenllian's stomach and squeeze the information out of her.

When Gwenllian didn't answer, Gansey said, "It's Welsh. I don't understand what she meant by it. She said that she would be back tonight for you, Blue."

"No," Blue muttered, working it out as she said it. It was as though a light bulb turned on in her brain. "That's what  _Adam_ told  _her_. He's coming back!"

Gwenllian sat up like a bullet, her expression sour. "You know not who speaks!" she yelled furiously. "You know not what they say!"

"Shut up, yes I do," Gansey dismissed. He turned his attention away from her. "So, we just have to stay here tonight. Keep our guard up, watch Gwenllian - he'll turn up."

Blue regarded him carefully. "Are you sure?" she asked, which was a moot question. Gansey would never have said it if he didn't believe it. He wouldn't leave Adam in danger, wouldn't put his best friend's fate to chance.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Gansey said, "Trust me."

 

* * *

 

 

Gansey didn't like waiting. He didn't like finding meaningless tasks with which to bide time while something important was on the cusp of hitting. It ripped him from the groove of adventure and exacerbated his anxiety. If he thought about Adam for too long, he felt like he was being tickled by tiny wings.

Maura put the three of them to work that afternoon - after Gansey, in a desperate attempt to quell his pounding mind, had offered his and Ronan's services. Blue, to her utmost and very vocal dissatisfaction, was spending the day locked in her room with Gwenllian. Gansey was also put off by this, because it meant that Blue was completely sealed away, but he also recognized that she was the only one sensible enough and clever enough for that responsibility.

He and Ronan were sent on errands to get herbs for Maura's teas, bath bombs for Calla, and lunch for everyone. They cleaned the kitchen, dusted all the pictures (Gansey fawned over littler versions of Blue for up to ten minutes at a time), wiped mirrors and windows clean, changed seven different light bulbs, and even kicked a broken space heater into submission - much to Orla's enthusiastic gratitude.

It was not that they did not hear a peep from Blue and Gwenllian. It was that the inhabitants of 300 Fox Way learned to tune out the loud and extended peeps - whether it was Gwenllian's insubordination or Blue's response to it. Gansey felt inexplicably bad that he wasn't there to help, but he knew that he would pose more of a distraction than assistance.

Ronan was no help. He said maybe four words - which were more like grunts, actually. Gansey didn't know why he was behaving so appallingly. Sure, Adam was one of their closest friends, and his deviancy was disconcerting, but they had a plan. There was no wiggle room for concern.

At seven, Ronan was outside, sulking. He'd practically impaled Gansey when Gansey had tried to talk to him, which was surprising - not the fact that he'd tried, but that it had worked. So Gansey was helping Maura chop fresh vegetables for pan-Mexican. His work was as slow and grueling as hers was quick and expert, but he showed no emotion except for delight. It was an interesting dynamic, considering that they both knew he was unashamedly in love with her daughter but instead were talking animatedly about the toxicity of Christmas music and its monopoly of Henrietta radio stations from November 1st to January 16th. She didn't pretend that he was doing an acceptable job of cutting vegetables, but she also didn't tell him to stop.

"Soon, you'll be a pro," Maura assured him. "Peppers  _are_ annoying."

"I don't care," Gansey muttered, "about the pepper. I care about chopping off my  _finger_."

Maura raised an eyebrow. "At that speed? You wouldn't break the skin."

"Hey. Two and a half hands are better than two," he joked, and Maura laughed quietly. There was an oddly comforting sort of moment where they had both stopped laughing, but were still smiling soft, vulnerable smiles. Gansey's eyes were dark, hesitant. How painstakingly much he would love to spend a holiday evening here, with Blue and her family, with the chaos of simplicity, with no secrets.

The silence was interrupted by a flash of lightning outside and the rolling smack of thunder. Gansey said, "Sounds like the storm's getting closer." His nonchalance was insincere, and he was fairly certain that if anyone else had been in Maura's place, they wouldn't have noticed.

"I guess that means you'll have to take extra care. For more than your sake." Maura set down her knife. Her sigh was feeble but prolonged; it died weakly. Gansey didn't know how to respond to that.

He rubbed his thumb against his lip and tasted green peppers, then mentally reminded himself to wash his hands before he resumed chopping. "I just want Adam to come out of this in one piece. Everything else is secondary."

"I can see that you mean that."

"I do."

Maura asked, very seriously, "How long have you known?"

Thunder crashed once more overhead. Gansey steeled himself against the eruption of nerves cascading throughout him in an avalanche of repressed anxiety. He thought he might be crazy for telling the truth. "Since the beginning. Since before I met Blue, or any of you. I've always known what St. Mark's Eve means."

Maura closed her eyes.

There was a heady moment of silence, during which Gansey felt very vulnerable, like he was laid bare at the foot of a storm. The oven light illuminated Maura's face, but she looked older. Worn down. Which was not a very nice thing to think, but it was undeniable. The weight of the world was invisible on her shoulders; Gansey felt asymmetrically unworthy of his own burden. Maura had people who needed her, who relied on her and wanted her near. That was where they differed.

Her gaze was harrowing. He glanced up, and was suddenly struck by Blue's features, her eyebrows, the small jut of her chin. Gansey was awestruck. He knew that Maura being psychic did not mean she was telepathic, but if she said she was right now, he would believe her.

"I will tell you what I've always told Blue: our predictions are a promise, not a guarantee."

Gansey's eyebrows furrowed. "I don't," he said, "understand the difference."

"Promises can be broken," she told him importantly. "Don't give up because you think you know how it ends."

Gansey gave a humorless huff of laughter, which he immediately wished he could retract. "Adam," he said slowly, "is infinitely more useful to this world than I am. He's earned his place. I was born into mine."

Maura didn't answer for a minute, which Gansey perceived as her being puzzled. He used the time to rinse his hands in the sink. By the time he was back to butchering dinner, Maura had found her words.

Lips pursed, tone firm, she said, "You know that you'll be killing them too, right?"

Her words were so blunt that Gansey felt as though he'd been hit over the head.

"Excuse me?"

"Don't you understand the bond you four have? It's love that I've never seen before," Maura emphasized. "I don't know you very well, Gansey, but..." She paused, which was excellent for Gansey, because it gave him the opportunity to get his expression back under control; he cleared his throat and blinked rapidly. Maura continued, "Your life doesn't need to be a tragedy to have an impact. Blue would be devastated."

Gansey worked very hard to keep his tone civil, but she had struck a nerve. "You think I don't know that? Blue, Ronan, Adam, and Noah mean the world to me. I would never hurt them, not for the world. Which is why I _can't_ tell them. What if it changes things? What if it happens to one of  _them_ instead? To your daughter? What can I do? If someone has to die, it ought to be me." He remembered his manners and added, "Please do me the courtesy of not telling J- Blue."

"She knows, Gansey." Maura's voice was cold, a product to having been talked to so harshly, but Gansey pretended not to notice. It was the only way, for him. He refused to be talked out of it.

Gansey said, "I realize that. I meant, please don't tell her that  _I_ know."

 

* * *

 

Adam knew better than anyone what a person was made up of.

A person started off with what they were given. There was all that jargon about nature versus nurture and personality versus poisonality, or whatever they hell they called it. But regardless of opinion, at the base of every person was optimism or pessimism, motivation or resignation, diligence or laziness. Adam Parrish was diligent, motivated, and pessimistic. It seemed rare that his two better attributes could be paired with optimism in anyone.

After that base, a person had two more things: memories and reactions. What they had been through, and how they dealt with it. The context of a person's life was integral to their make up. Adam, for example, was constructed of dark bruises and loaned textbooks and half-working possessions. He had his own body and clothes to cover it. But really, after that, Adam Parrish was threadbare, stretched. If a person was fed by happy memories, then he was starving.

And after that was just one thing left that made up a person - or, in Gansey's case, thousands of things. In the case of Ronan Lynch as well, but he could be overlooked. Because the last thing was things. Adam was not what he ate, he was what he owned. He was the shitty hondayota, the uncomfortable mattress in the corner of his creaky apartment, the frayed Aglionby sweater and painstakingly polished shoes originated from a consignment shop. Gansey was his vintage car, his warehouse, his journal, his quest. Gansey was full to bursting with interesting things, unique occurrences, one-of-a-kind artifacts. Gansey was the people around him, a reflection for every situation, a mirror that showed your flawless self.

Adam hated him for it.

He pushed himself up from his hands and knees, through the jutted opening of corroded stone and farther into the cave. It was rocky and dark, but Adam was more so. He wiped his scared palms on dirtied cargo shorts.

It was nice, he thought bitterly, to have a body again. To have a name. Adam Parrish. Thoughts and memories and (technically) stuff. It was certainly a step down from his old life, but it was a step up from black eternity in a cold coffin, buried under the Earth and sustained only by a temperamental line of old magic.

Adam Parrish.

He could have asked for more, but it was probably better to make do. Especially with Adam's link to Richard Gansey, a boy twice born of ravens and crowns. A king who felt entitled to his reward, with unwitting subjects to match - the angry one, drifting into his thoughts again. A place he didn't belong, not when there was important work to be done. Adam's next breath was half a growl. Gansey was the important one, the one to be concerned about.

Gansey felt entitled to Glendower? Well, Adam Parrish felt entitled to revenge. For then and for now. For imprisoning him under the Earth and for the disrespect of being so consistently patronized.

No, Adam would wake his dear, sleeping friend by himself. He would go back for Gwenllian, destroy the ley line with his wish, and finally put an end to all of this damned time-manipulation. 

"I always told you it wasn't right," Adam said to the empty dark. "You may be a king, but you were never a god. Do you hear me? With providence, mine will be the last voice you hear. Time to wake up."

 

* * *

 

Blue was going into the bathroom when Gansey quite literally bumped into her next. He flushed and stammered for a moment before saying, "Blue. Sorry, I was leaving."

Blue said, eyebrows quirked, "I knocked. You didn't say anything."

There was a pause. The kind that meant Gansey was thinking of a lie and Blue was supposed to play dumb. The best he could come up with was, "I was stuck in my own head space." Gansey's smile was a tortured sort of charming. Blue saw  _him_ in them. Her Gansey, no barriers. She softened.

"Keep me company for a minute," she invited. "Jimi is watching the monster destroy all of my clothes. Which just means I'm going to wear them more often. I need all the recuperation time I can squeeze out of this." She was tiny, but she effectively blocked Gansey's exit. He obediently stepped back, and Blue scooted past him to take charge of the mirror.

Her hair was a different kind of disaster than usual - a  _real_ disaster, the kind that was desperately in need of her expertly eccentric hands. She set to work with taking out all of the clips. They fell to the sink with soft clicks as she said, "Some day, huh?"

She glanced at Gansey, who was looking at her as though he was absolutely floored by the fact of her existence. She couldn't help the smile that spread as she turned back to her reflection.

"Well," Gansey said, playing the part of nonchalant without really investing himself in it, "it'll all be over soon enough."

Blue glanced at him again; he was examining the half-depleted bag of toilet paper rolls on a white wicker shelf. His expression was quiet. "Did you mean for that to sound as ominous as it was?" she asked, and waited for his eyes to flick back to her before shaking her hair loose and feeling for stray clips. There were none. Sometime between her fingers obscuring her vision and her hair settling, Gansey had crowded into her personal space.

"If I lose my enigmatic charm," he said softly, catching a lock of her hair, "then what do I have left?" His tone was mock-light. Blue didn't say  _hundreds of thousands of dollars, a family that is only barely crazy, a really cute brunette who you aren't allowed to date, and some genuinely awful boat shoes_. Mostly because she was encapsulated. She wished that she wasn't so sensible, not for the first time.

She asked, "Did you do that on purpose?"

Gansey looked barely puzzled, too consumed with committing the color of her hair to memory. "Do what?"

Blue gave an inch of a nod. "That." Her stomach was rocking and swaying, her heart hammering, her palms sweaty. Gansey released her.

"I have no idea what you mean."

They looked at each other for a long moment. Blue felt herself relaxing, her body responding to the comfort of his presence, her heart filling up and settling, snug, inside her breastbone. A small voice alerted her,  _This is what love feels like_. She couldn't ignore it. It was as though she had always known, but had never quite had the tools to qualify it. She pictured the distant future, her grandchildren asking, " _Grammy, when did you first know you were in love_?" " _Well, I was standing in a bathroom_..."

She pictured the past, the moment she had stood in a field with a telescope and tried to imagine what it would be like to be where she was now. In her mind, a red gauge filled to bursting:  _This is what love feels like. I am now in love with him. DANGER._

Sensibility won out, and all at once, she turned away.

"To answer your question..." Gansey murmured, "Everything I do is on purpose."

Blue looked at him in the mirror. The thought was terrifying, and she wholeheartedly believed that he could mean anything by it. Intimidated by those implications but still unwilling to back down, she said solemnly, "Even the polo shirts?"

The smile that spread across Gansey's face was private and cherishing. Blue was lost in it. She saw the wetness of it, how vulnerable he looked.

"Especially the polo shirts," he confirmed, and he sounded as though he was falling back into himself, as though Blue had been able to anchor him there. She proudly turned and went back to pampering, applying a squirt of lotion to her left palm and massaging it into her skin. "I honestly can't fathom what you have against them."

Blue retorted gently, "I honestly can't fathom how you talk without choking on your big words."

Gansey took both her hands in his and brought them not quite to his face but past his chest. Even still, the scent carried. "Cherry," he noted. Then, he brought the back of Blue's hand close enough to his mouth that the intent was clear, but not close enough that he actually touched it. Her heart skipped a beat. He said, "This is a kiss."

Gingerly, he adjusted her hand until her wrist was next to her mouth; she let him. She trusted him. He continued importantly, "This is also a kiss."

And finally, he held their hands together against his chest and leaned forward until traces of mint danced between them. "And this is a kiss."

Their lips never touched, but Blue could swear she had never felt less like a single entity.

 

* * *

 

Ronan emerged from the backyard after dinner. He was less angry, but still covered in spikes and primed to cut. Gansey's eyes popped wide. "Ro-"

Ronan grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him outside. Gansey nearly tripped on the step and flung his arms out wildly, only steadied by Ronan's ever-present ability to catch him. Gansey stood taller and adjusted his shirt importantly. "Thanks."

Ronan ground out, finding it quite difficult to speak, "Parrish. I've been thinking."

Gansey's shoulders dropped. He became softer, more attentive. He struggled for words for a minute, aidless from Ronan, before settling on, "Yes?"

"When we first met, and you told me about all this shit, I didn't remember, but - but - I - okay, it's difficult to explain, but I think I know what's going on with Adam."

" _You do_?"

"Yes, shut up. I think I know who the third sleeper is," Ronan said. He tugged at a knot in the mass of leather bands around his wrist, and licked his lips.

"You what? Is this a conversation we should be having with Blue?" Gansey asked. His thumb jumped to his lower lip, his eyes calculating. Ronan, agitated, traced the movement before grunting his indifference - which meant yes. A moment later, Blue and Gansey were hurtling down the stairs, Blue looking panicked, and Gansey only looking panicked because, where Blue amplified psychics, Gansey amplified Blue. Her worry was his worry. Ronan's gut untwisted but his jaw clenched.

"Maggot," he acknowledged. Blue skipped over the friendly formalities.

"Come inside," she told him. "Into the reading room."

"Why?"

"Because that's where we're going to have this conversation." Blue's tone left no room for argument, but Ronan would never pretend that he listened to her, so he rolled his eyes and made a show of gesturing them to lead the way. He could feel Gansey's eyes on him, noting the way Ronan's movements were slower, more sullen. He didn't think about it.

Instead, he thought about last weekend.

Gansey had knocked on Ronan's bedroom door late Saturday night, or possibly early Sunday morning, and Ronan had tried to ignore him, a trivial formality. Gansey had seen through it, as Gansey always saw through Ronan. Light had turned his eyelids orange, and Ronan had hissed out several swear words and yanked his earbuds from his ears. Gansey, waiting patiently for the storm to pass, had stood in the doorway, motionless, his expression filled with the sleepless calm of too many nights spent with too little sleep.

"What?" Ronan had snarled, pleased with the degree of acid that had shot up his spine quick enough to make it to his words. Even in his boxers with his face half-smushed into a pillow, Ronan was sharp and lethal. 

Unaffected, permanently immune, Gansey had said, "Adam left this here. Could you drop it off tomorrow since you'll be at St. Agnes anyway?" He held up a paperback book, in almost perfect condition apart from the mass of pink post-it notes sticking off every page. Adam didn't annotate in pencil because Adam couldn't afford to buy Aglionby books.

Ronan had grunted, and he knew that Gansey hadn't been sure whether it was a yes or no, because  _Ronan_ hadn't been sure whether it was a yes or no. Nevertheless, he'd set the book on Ronan's nightstand, murmured, "Thanks," in good faith, and shut the door. A few moments later, all the lights on the warehouse floor went out. Monmouth Manufacturing was silent.

The next morning, the only day of the week Ronan bothered to make his tie look adequate, he was knocking on the door of the little apartment that ran off St. Agnes. He would have described it as shitty if it weren't associated with both Adam and the church. It wasn't so much lying as it was respectfully omitting the truth.

The door was answered after a pause that felt deliberate, like it was only there to create a pause.

Adam had no pajamas because Adam craved his independent life of filth and struggle. There were many roads to success, but Adam always chose the one paved with cheese graters. He stood, lanky and tall and find-boned, with the door in one hand and nothing in the other. This is also what he did in real life. Clad only in dark boxers and a thin white shirt, his hair was cow-licked on the left side.

"Well," Ronan had deadpanned, "I'm glad we're both in our Sunday finest. I'd hate for one of us to look like a douchebag."

Adam, sleepy and soft, breathed a laugh through his nose. He wasn't carefree, because study-holic Adam Parrish didn't know the definition of care-free, but he was as close as he could be. "Which one of us are you implying is the douchebag?"

"Don't be stupid, Parrish. And we don't have time to prattle. I'm here for a reason."

"I know that I'm somewhat of a role model, Lynch," Adam said in reply, "but worship takes place  _down_ stairs."

Ronan let his pleasure show in his smile. His deadly, venomous, appeased smile.

"You have a minute?" Adam asked, his head tipping back in a lazy invitation. He stepped back into the apartment and left it open to Ronan. Ronan ducked inside.

He had never blurred the territory between church and Adam. To Ronan, they were different parts of him, parts that only he should see because of their ugly stains. Of course, they were ugly for very different reasons. Church was ugly because Declan was there. Adam was ugly because Ronan was there.

"No work today?" Ronan inquired.

Adam shook his head, his sleep-disturbed hair flouncing with him. "Not until four."

Ronan gave a sarcastically appreciative whistle at the luxury. Adam raised an eyebrow in delicate defiance of Ronan's dismissal. Ronan dropped it. His eyes had found the spot on the floor that should've held his sun-faded outline by now. Adam's gaze followed, but neither of them said a thing, because they didn't talk about it. Ronan sauntered farther into the room.

"You've been awake too long. You forgot this at Monmouth." Ronan brandished the heavily annotated book as evidence. Adam held out his palm wordlessly, and Ronan dropped the book into it. All casual.

"Your tie is straight," Adam noted quizzically. Ronan fought the urge to pull it apart. "Who died?"

"Jesus Christ did, for your sin of sticking your nose into other people's goddamn business."

"Did you just chastise me for sin and say 'goddamn' in the same sentence?"

"Did you just use the word 'chastise' outside of the fifteenth century?" Ronan asked pleasantly. "Besides, Jesus loves me. We both like to pretend the wine was water."

"I thought the water was wine."

Ronan reminded him which of them actually went to church by digging his knuckles into Adam's scalp until they were both gasping for laughter. When Adam complained, Ronan said, with a careless grin, "It's not like your hair was so fucking perfect before."

Adam narrowed his eyes, ducked into the bathroom (with an atrocious squeak of the door that made Ronan check his feet for stray kittens), and seconds later gave the melodramatic wail of the less fortunate. Ronan's grin widened to encompass both sides of his face.

When he'd emerged again, Adam's hair had been exactly the same, but he was smiling. He was rubbing his hands together - spreading lotion, Ronan realized with a twinge of warm embarrassment. That was another thing they didn't talk about. Adam said, "I put on too much. Give me your hands."

Ronan, carefully speechless, did as he was asked for the first time in recent memory. Adam's hands were constructed of square palms and long, thin fingers. They raked over and between Ronan's larger, slender hands with stunning accuracy, and try as he might have, Ronan couldn't stop staring. At the very least, he tried to mute the look of wonder that surely showed in his eyes.

Now, walking into the reading room, he unlocked that feeling and took it out again, holding it carefully in his chest and trying to convince himself that it could be as real an emotion as anger.

Inside, Calla and Maura sat at the heavily battered wooden table. There were scuffs, scratches, and notches all over it - character-donors. Gansey sat, but Ronan and Blue, both clearly filled with restless energy, elected to stand. Gansey, disciplined under his own hand by years of training, was a contrasting display of motionless containment, verging on politely interested. Beneath that exterior, Ronan could see the desperation he was keeping in check. They needed to find Adam.

Everyone was silent. Ronan didn't realize that they were waiting for him. He expected preamble, a dramatic conference, so he was lost in his own head.

Gently, Gansey cleared his throat. All eyes were on Ronan, who startled. "What?"

"And here I thought we were doing something important," Calla tutted. Her jaw was locked tight and a glass of red wine was within reaching distance. Every few seconds she would glance at Gansey as if he were overdue to crack and shatter like glass. Ronan didn't like it.

"Go ahead, Ronan," Gansey amended, pointedly but politely.

Ronan didn't really know where to start, but the beginning seemed logical. "I had this dream about Glendower once," he began, but it felt too much like he was responding to adults, so he pretended he was only talking to Gansey. "It was before I met you, so I thought it was just my brain being weird. But it was more that that. Gwenllian was in it. And Glendower. And someone else, but I don't know who he was."

"Three," Maura remarked softly. The unspoken  _is a very powerful number_ hung in the air. She made an apologetic face and gestured for Ronan to continue, but Blue didn't let him.

She said, "The three sleepers."

Gansey pointed at her with steepled fingers. "Precisely what I was thinking." His voice was soft, his eyes distant, as though he was more in his mind than his body. Ronan raised his eyebrows, waiting.

"It wasn't like one of my normal dreams," he said shiftily, words coded for Maura and Calla's sake. "It told a complete story. But it was like a warning, I don't know. I wrote it down but I lost the paper. But in it, like, the third guy was a real dick. He kept telling Glendower that he was doing something wrong, but he stayed because he - loved Gwenllian."

Blue shivered.

"She was normaller then," Ronan told her in response. "But she couldn't get them to agree, so they, like, turned against each other. There was this big showdown, and Glendower - he killed the other guy, but he didn't. It's weird. It's like... the beginning. That's how I always thought of it."

"The beginning of what?" Gansey pressed.

Ronan leveled him with a steady gaze and an impressive beat of silence. "Cabeswater."

" _Cabeswater_?" Blue's voice was as bewildered as her face. Ronan wished that he fought with her because they were different, not because they were similar.

"I think his death caused it," Ronan half-explained, half-butchered. "The ley line used it to create Cabeswater. So it isn't  _his_ energy, necessarily, but his energy is what started it. If that makes sense."

Gansey frowned in his concentration. At length, he said, "So, he disagrees with Glendower - about what? Sleeping?"

"I think so," Ronan supplied. He was carefully leaving out what had jogged this memory - Adam's face in the place of this man, once Glendower's friend. "I think this is Cabeswater warning me - us."

"Hold on," Blue asserted. "Let me get this straight, just so we're all on the same page. We are under the impression that, hundreds of years ago, Glendower fought with someone, killed him  _on_ the ley line, and Cabeswater was born. Then they became the three sleepers. Now, Gwenllian and the other guy are both awake, but the other guy is possessing Adam - that's why Adam is hitting people with branches and speaking Welsh - and that guy is using Adam to - to - I don't know. Something. Have a body? Get revenge on Glendower?" When no one replied to challenge her, she sat down by the door and muttered airily, "Just checking."

Ronan glanced at Calla, whose gaze had been caught in the room's darkest corner. Curious, he followed her, and found Noah, very still, standing more ghostly than usual as the window behind him was painted in the first sprinkles of rain.

He said, "I just thought you'd like to know, Adam is about to wake Glendower and destroy Cabeswater."

 

* * *

 

The next four minutes were a frenzied scrambling of car keys, supplies, and bathroom breaks ("I don't want to have to excuse myself for a fucking piss when we find Adam" -Ronan.  "Actually, that's a good idea, dibs on next" -Blue  "You're both atrocious. I'm after Jane" -Gansey).

Sometime amidst the scattering, Calla managed to snag Blue. She was, in stark contrast to the rest of the house, completely immobile. Her glass of red wine was half-full, and she stared at it as though it showed her the future. Of course, with Calla, that was never completely out of the question.

Blue was impatient. "Yes?" she asked absently.

"Your attention." Calla's tone was utterly calm, but not cool. She was tense, Blue realized. She was trying not to think that this was the day the women of 300 Fox Way had been dreading for years. Seeing that Blue's focus had been shifted entirely to her, Calla nodded approvingly. All her movements were slow, deliberate. "I want you to take extra precaution."

"Calla, did you really pull me aside just to tell me to be careful?"

" _Yes_ , I did," Calla said, and her entire demeanor shifted into something angry - but a kind of anger that was different from any Blue had ever seen in her. It was laced with righteous offense. "You think because you're still alive that you're invincible? A dangerous, and frankly pathetic thought, Blue, and I expected better from you."

Blue wanted to say,  _I mean, I didn't say that, you did_ , but she refrained, mostly because Calla's anger was already pulling back into that resolute calm. "That's not what I think at all."

"So you say," Calla mused dispassionately. She swirled her wine with a bitter expression but made no effort to bring it toward her lips. "But that boy is as important to you as Persephone was to me. And if I could go back and take her fate instead..."

Blue froze in the way that a person did when they were not moving in the first place, heart hammering, body stiffening, senses awakening. She had never heard Calla say such a thing. The subject of Persephone was still raw for all of them. That Calla was choosing to talk about it first jarred Blue. She was surprised to find herself saying, "You know she wouldn't have let you."

Calla slammed her glass down, but not a drop spilled. Her voice was heart-breakingly calm. It was a sort of calmness that Blue had always associated with defeat. "Damn it all."

Blue wanted to take Calla's hand, but she knew that that would only make it worse.

"So, I'm at the part where you wish you could be," Blue pressed, trailblazing a new conversation. "The part  _before_. What do I do?"

Calla regarded the still wine with a dark expression. "Time," she said somberly, "has its old favorites. It likes to play them again and again. My advice? Don't be the putty. Be the hand that holds it. Be the master of the hawk, the keeper of the keys, hold every card - do whatever you have to in order to live with yourself. But, for the love of God, Blue, be _careful_."

 

* * *

 

 

The ride to Cabeswater was strained and silent, with the tension tangible over the rattling of the engine and the rocks beneath wheels jostling the whole car. Gansey's secondary car was one that Blue would never seen before, and thus knew nothing about, other than the fact that it had the ability to make her annoyed that a teenage boy owned (at least)  _two_ expensive cars. Not that she expected much less from someone whose name was only the most pompous in the family by an additional roman numeral. The secondary car's headlights had met their match penetrating this rain. Blue tried to keep herself from shaking, but it was like telling herself not to think. She felt cold all over, and realized, as Gansey's shoulder tugged sideways from adjusting the wheel, that this was terror. She couldn't bear to lose him. He was the one person who least deserved his own fate.

Blue was sure that if she could manage to keep from kissing him tonight, the rest of her life would be manageable. This was the night that mattered.

Just one last night.

Gansey spoke then, startling the silence of the car and the people in it. "Ronan, when we get there, you need to ask the trees where to find Adam. And you, Blue, need to focus everything you've got into keeping the peace."

She wondered when he had stopped calling her Jane. "It's not really up to me," she told him. "You know that."

"I know that you  _think_ that," he corrected. His words were not placating or patronizing. They were impersonal and objective. "But tonight is the night for plans. I want you to promise me both that you will listen to me. If anything happens to either of you - to Adam or Noah - I won't be able to live with myself."

Blue's stomach dropped as Calla's words echoed in her ears.

"I don't know why you think you're in charge of us," Ronan growled, "or why you think we can't handle ourselves."

"Lynch. Please. I am done arguing," Gansey said. She was least like her favorite Gansey now. He was Gansey the Leader - the master chess player, the intuitive scholar, the one who was always calculating ways to achieve the most efficient win. "It is important that you listen to me."

"And what makes you more experienced than us? We've all been in this since the beginning," Ronan argued. Blue was glad he was saying this, because she found that her own voice was small and insubstantial in her throat. "I know you get a boner for being in charge-"

" _Ronan_."

One word. That was all it took. Gansey was a miracle of authority, an conductor of exquisite pain with his words. Ronan slumped back against the window.

And now, Gansey's voice was a quiet steady, "Please agree with me."

Ronan grunted noncommittally, which meant  _Fine_.

"Okay," Blue breathed shakily. She wasn't sure he'd heard until he nodded, and some of the tension seeped ever so lightly from his shoulders. From the backseat, Blue watched him, terrified that she was swiftly running out of time to look upon his features. He was an Angel, covered in shadow and staring straight ahead. His jaw was tight, and when he swallowed, Blue could track the movement in his throat. She knew that he knew she was watching. The moment he tried to hide his hands trembling on the wheel was the moment she noticed it.

As they pulled up the final hill of their journey, Blue willed herself to wake up.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dorkgansey.tumblr.com if ur interested
> 
> other than that, idk rly what to say. its almost midnight and im tired and the next chapter is gonna be a doozy. whooooowhee

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaaaaaaaand that's it for right now. The next chapter is about half-formed, a weird mishmash of half-scenes and heartbreak. Hopefully it'll be up within the next few weeks, but, you know, stuff and things and other stories to finally go back to and pretend I haven't abandoned ahahahah ha ha ahhah.....


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